DARPA Wants AI To Reveal Adversaries' True Intentions

From eastern Europe to southern Iraq, the US military faces an ancient but also current difficult problem: Adversaries who pretending to be someone they’re not. 

A new program from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency seeks to apply artificial intelligence to detect and understand how adversaries are using sneaky tactics to create chaos, undermine governments, spread foreign influence and sow discord.

This activity, hostile action that falls short of, but often precedes, violence, is sometimes referred to as gray zone warfare, the ‘zone’ being a sort of liminal state in between peace and war. The actors that work in it are difficult to identify and their aims hard to predict, by design.

“We’re looking at the problem from two perspectives: Trying to determine what the adversary is trying to do, his intent; and once we understand that or have a better understanding of it, then identify how he’s going to carry out his plans — what the timing will be, and what actors will be used,” said DARPA program manager Fotis Barlos.

Dubbed COMPASS, the new program will “leverage advanced artificial intelligence technologies, game theory, and modeling and estimation to both identify stimuli that yield the most information about an adversary’s intentions, and provide decision makers high-fidelity intelligence on how to respond, with positive and negative tradeoffs for each course of action,” according to DARPA.

Teaching software to understand and interpret human intention, a task sometimes called “plan recognition”, has been a subject of scholarship since at least a 1978 paper by Rutgers University researchers who sought to understand whether computer programs might be able to anticipate human intentions within rule-based environments like chess.

Since then, the science of plan recognition has advanced as quickly as the spread of computers and the internet, because all three are intimately linked.

From Amazon to Google to Facebook, the world’s top tech companies are pouring money into probabilistic modeling of user behavior, as part of a constant race to keep from losing users to sites that can better predict what they want. 
A user’s every click, “like,” and even period of inactivity adds to the companies’ almost unimaginably large sets, and new machine learning and statistical techniques (especially involving Bayesian reasoning) make it easier than ever to use the information to predict what a given user will do next on a given site. 

Among these tools is Google’s Activity Recognition library, which helps app developers imbue their software with a better sense of what the user is doing.

But inferring a user’s next Amazon purchase (based on data that user has volunteered about previous choices, likes, etc.) is altogether different from predicting how an adversary intends to engage in political or unconventional warfare. So the COMPASS program seeks to use video, text, and other pieces of intelligence that are a lot harder to get than shopping-cart data.

The program aligns well with the needs of the Special Operations Forces community in particular. Gen. Raymond “Tony” Thomas, the head of US Special Operations Command, has said that he’s interested in deploying forces to places before there’s a war to fight. Thomas has discussed his desire to apply artificial intelligence, including neural nets and deep learning techniques, to get “left of bang.”

Unlike shopping, the analytical tricks that apply to one gray-zone adversary won’t work on another. “History has shown that no two [unconventional warfare] situations or solutions are identical, thus rendering cookie-cutter responses not only meaningless but also often counterproductive,” wrote Gen. Joseph Votel, who leads US Central Command, in his seminal 2016 treatise on gray zone warfare.

As practiced by Amazon and others within the domain of online shopping, “plan recognition” at scale is very cookie-cutter.  If COMPASS succeeds, it will have to apply game theory and big data to behavior prediction in ways that Silicon Valley has never attempted.

It will have to do so repeatedly, in the face of varied and constantly morphing adversaries looking to keep as much of their activity hidden as possible. 

DefenseOne

You Might Also Read: 

The Pentagon Puts Google’s AI To Use:

AI Is Replacing Human Made Decisions:
 

 

« Healthcare Security Should Use More Sophisticated Tools
Snowden Says Social Media Is Surveillance 'Rebranded' »

Infosecurity Europe
CyberSecurity Jobsite
Perimeter 81

Directory of Suppliers

CSI Consulting Services

CSI Consulting Services

Get Advice From The Experts: * Training * Penetration Testing * Data Governance * GDPR Compliance. Connecting you to the best in the business.

ManageEngine

ManageEngine

As the IT management division of Zoho Corporation, ManageEngine prioritizes flexible solutions that work for all businesses, regardless of size or budget.

XYPRO Technology

XYPRO Technology

XYPRO is the market leader in HPE Non-Stop Security, Risk Management and Compliance.

TÜV SÜD Academy UK

TÜV SÜD Academy UK

TÜV SÜD offers expert-led cybersecurity training to help organisations safeguard their operations and data.

Jooble

Jooble

Jooble is a job search aggregator operating in 71 countries worldwide. We simplify the job search process by displaying active job ads from major job boards and career sites across the internet.

SSH Communications Security

SSH Communications Security

SSH Communications Security is a leading provider of enterprise cybersecurity solutions for controlling trusted access to information systems and data.

XenArmor

XenArmor

XenArmor products include NetCertScanner, an enterprise software to scan & manage expired SSL Certificates on your local network or internet.

Cyber Security Experts Association of Nigeria (CSEAN)

Cyber Security Experts Association of Nigeria (CSEAN)

Cyber Security Experts Association of Nigeria (CSEAN) is a not for profit group of professionals in the field of Information Security in Nigeria and Diaspora.

Certes

Certes

Certes is a pioneer in delivering cutting-edge security technology solutions, with a specific focus on Data Protection Risk Mitigation (DPRM).

Japan Network Security Association (JNSA)

Japan Network Security Association (JNSA)

JNSA's goal is to promote standardization related to network security and to contribute to greater technological standards in the field.

Prescient

Prescient

Prescient’s Cyber solutions supplement your firm’s existing data security infrastructure with specialized investigations that identify unconventional cyber risks.

Cyber Struggle

Cyber Struggle

At Cyber Struggle, our aim is training and certifying the special forces of the cyber world.

SpecterOps

SpecterOps

SpecterOps has unique insight into the cyber adversary mindset and brings the highest caliber, most experienced resources to assess your organizations defenses.

DataExpert Singapore

DataExpert Singapore

DataExpert Singapore provide solutions and services in the areas of Digital Forensics, Data Recovery, Data Duplication, Data Degaussing & Wiping, Data Destruction, and IT Disposal.

Infopercept Consulting

Infopercept Consulting

Infopercept is a leading cybersecurity company in India, providing a critical layer of security to protect business information, infrastructure & assets across the organization.

Nitrokey

Nitrokey

Nitrokey is the world-leading company in open source security hardware. Nitrokey develops IT security hardware for data encryption, key management and user authentication.

BlastWave

BlastWave

BlastWave deliver Operational Technology Cybersecurity solutions that minimize the available attack surface and protect against the rising tide of AI-powered cyber attacks.

Red Helix

Red Helix

Red Helix (formerly Phoenix Datacom) is a market leader in network performance and cyber security.

SentryMark

SentryMark

Stay a Step Ahead of Emerging Threats. Deviate from the traditional siloed defenses and get the proactive and responsive cybersecurity solutions and services you deserve with SentryMark today.

SecuCenter

SecuCenter

Secucenter is a trusted partner for SOC services, offering security expertise in a cost-effective way.

Harmony Intelligence

Harmony Intelligence

Harmony builds cutting-edge defensive AI products that safeguard people and critical infrastructure around the world from AI-powered threats.